Umberto Ciceri
„CHRONOCHROMATISM – Geometry is my North Star“
Galerie Martina Kaiser is delighted to ring in the spring season with an exhibition by Umberto Ciceri. In "CHRONOCHROMATISM - Geometry is my North Star", the internationally acclaimed Italian artist presents his vision of abstract worlds of colour...
"Here, at the edge of the known, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, the mystery and beauty of the world shines. And it is breathtaking".
This quote from the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli dresses Umberto Ciceri's art in pure poetry. And reveals that the Lombard artist is able like no other to open up completely new worlds of colour and form that expand the boundaries of physics and geometry.
Movement is the central element in Umberto Ciceri's work. For through the movement of the light, as well as through the movement of the viewer's eyes and body, Ciceri's installations also undergo a dynamic process that is characterised by permanent change. And never heralds finalisation. Colour and contours seem to constantly reform in the works based on lenticular technique, blurring into new impressions and shapes that transcend time and space and thus expand into infinity.
Inspired by mathematics and physics, as well as linguistics, the Italian artist creates his own system of signs aimed at the interactivity of the work and the viewer, creating a constant dialogue of action and reaction. The exhibition title "CHRONOCHROMATISM - Geometry is my North Star" summarises Ciceri's leitmotif of inspiration and orientation through geometry, colour phenomenology and time dilation in his own neologism, thus establishing a new terminology for his concept of flowing, continuous light art, whose aesthetics are defined by novel visual impulses and codes. For which the opening quote by Carlo Rovelli, chosen by the Italian curator responsible for the exhibition, Alessandro Castiglioni, is once again the most apt description. Anyone wishing to follow up Castiglioni's comments on Umberto Ciceri's art is recommended to read his essay in the appendix, which he wrote for the artist's new catalogue. (Yorca Schmidt-Junker)
Umberto Ciceri lives and works in Barcelona and Bologna. Born in Italy, he is a qualified textile designer and graduated from the Milan Academy of Art and Fashion. While working in the fashion industry, Umberto Ciceri began to study optics, the chemical structure of colours and the neurophysiological processes involved in perception - which laid the foundations for his career as a freelance artist, which began in 2007. Since then, he has been one of the leading specialists in the field of lenticular technology. His works have been exhibited worldwide, including in the USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Turkey, and can be found in numerous international private collections. In 2011, he was one of the artists exhibited in the Italian pavilion at the 54th Biennale D'Arte in Venice, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi. In 2018, he showed his exhibition "Human Fights Right Lights" under the patronage of Amnesty International in the historic Reggia di Caserta palace, and in 2022 the MA*GA Art Museum in Gallarate/Italy dedicated a solo exhibition to him.
Umberto Ciceri
„Blurring Time“
The gallery Martina Kaiser is pleased to showcase with „Blurring Time“ new works from Italian artist Umberto Ciceri. Besides his iconic ballerinas the exhibition will present new installations of the “Millimeters”-cycle which furthermore create a revolutionary visual experience due to the lenticular technique in his oeuvre.
The title “Blurring Time” is Mr. Ciceri’s reference to the golden age of classical art where the aureole as nimbus of the divine was the only canonical legitimized blurry element in painting. And thereby a precursor for the later resolution of forms and contours that arose in the late 19. century becoming a predominant style in painting for the future. On top the title can be interpreted as a comment on recent times; the way of the world seemed and still seems to be so unpredictable since the last months and weeks, simply blurry and unstable.
Hypnotic, powerful and a little enigmatic: At first sight the mural installations of Umberto Ciceri have the allure of hyper realistic paintings. But with each approach and movement of the beholder the motives start to rotate and oscillate, yet changing their shapes. Ballerinas turn around in full 360 degree, a dove seems to rise from the ground spreading its wings and monochrome color fields start to dance. With their blurry appearance it seems that Umberto Ciceri’s works are coated with a soft-focus gaze giving them an aura of scattered radiation and slight dizziness. And that’s exactly what he declared as his esthetic core. Instead of a sharp focus, precise alignements and clear boundaries that may express austerity following an authoritarian concept, he focuses sequential thresholds and prefers to fathom the optical periphery. By this he generates the illusion of movement and liveliness of his figures. His installations are literally moving images that infatuate with their ethereal allure and their formal indeterminacy forming subjects out of blending color mists and figurative elements.
In fact the beholder faces mobile visual clues instead of stiff tableaus which he has to refocus permanently in order to deduce the pictorial proceeding.
Being a fusion of film sequences and manual lenticular technique Umberto Ciceri’s works dispose of a unique character based on his high expertise about optics and visual processes.
(Yorca Schmidt-Junker)
Umberto Ciceri lives and works both in Barcelona and Bologna. The Italian born artist is a graduate textile designer with a diploma from the Milan Academy of Arts & Design. During his activities in the fashion business he started to study optics, the chemical structure of colors and neurophysiological processes in reception which formed the basis of his later career as an artist. Since then he is renowned as one of the leading experts in manual lenticular technique. His works were showcased in the USA, Singapore, Hongkong, Dubai, Turkey etc. and can be found in various private collections all over the world. In 2011 he took part at the 54. Biennale of Venice for the Italian pavilion, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi. With the patronage of Amnesty International he implemented the exhibition „Human Fights Right Lights“ at the historical Reggia di Caserta in 2018.
Umberto Ciceri
Fighters
Die Galerie Martina Kaiser freut sich sehr, bereits zum vierten Mal Umberto Ciceri in einer Einzelausstellung in Köln präsentieren zu dürfen.
Seine neue Werkreihe Fighters widmet Umberto Ciceri allen Frauen, die sich über ihre biologische und tradierte Rollendefinition erheben und zu Amazonen der Gleichberechtigung und Selbstbestimmung werden. Die weibliche Physis bannt der Italiener hier in rautenförmig verschachtelte Spiegelfelder, die einmal mehr dem von ihm spezialisierten Lentikular-Effekt unterliegen, flankiert von monochromen Farbflächen. Womit „seine“ Frauen zu einer neuen, vom Status quo losgelösten Entität finden.
Mit der Lentikular-Technik gehört Umberto Ciceri zu den wenigen Künstlern, die über ein veritables Alleinstellungsmerkmal verfügen. Dabei ist es weniger eine spezifische Bildsprache, die ihn gänzlich von anderen Künstlern unterscheidet, als vielmehr die Aufhebung ebendieser, indem er eine völlig neue visuelle Syntax definiert. Seine hypnotischen, dreidimensionalen anmutenden Installationen zeigen lediglich die Umrisse und Silhouetten von Subjekten oder geometrisch ausgerichteten Farbfeldern, die in permanenter Bewegung zu sein scheinen und sich einer zentrierten Beobachtung des Rezipienten vollkommen entziehen. Umberto Ciceri nennt seine Arbeiten Hypertraits und verweist damit auf motivische Eigenschaften, die jenseits des rein visuellen, kognitiv Erfahrbaren liegen. Vielmehr konstruiert jeder Betrachter das sich in steter Kinese befindliche Bild vor seinem eigenen „inneren Auge“, womit es zu einem individuell geprägten, transitorischen Objekt wird. Und der Beobachter zu einem aktiv Beteiligten am kreativen Prozess.
Umberto Ciceri lebt und arbeitet in Barcelona. Der gebürtige Italiener ist diplomierter Textildesigner und graduierte an der Mailänder Akademie für Kunst und Mode. Bereits während seiner Tätigkeit in der Modebranche setzte sich Umberto Ciceri intensiv mit Optik, der chemischen Struktur von Farben und neurophysiologischen Prozessen bei der Wahrnehmung auseinander – was den Grundstein für seine 2007 startende Karriere als freier Künstler bilden sollte. Seitdem zählt er zu den führenden Spezialisten auf dem Gebiet der Lentikular-Technik. Seine Werke sind in zahlreichen internationalen Privatsammlungen zu finden und wurden bereits auf der Context Art Miami, der Art New York sowie der Paris Art Fair gezeigt. 2011 gehörte er zu den ausgestellten Künstlern im italienischen Pavillon der 54. Biennale D’Arte in Venedig. (Yorca Schmidt-Junker)